Revisiting a Secret Garden Jewish Cemetery in Czech Republic

Looking out from the cemetery. All photos © Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber  

(This post also appears on my En Route blog for the Lost Angeles Jewish Journal.)
I spent part of this weekend at a bluegrass workshop in the little town of Male Svatonovice, in the north of the Czech Republic, near the Polish border. I was only there to observe, not to join the hundred or so students learning banjo, mandolin, guitar and bass, so I took time to drive half an hour through the back roads to revisit one of my favorite Jewish cemeteries -- the isolated walled graveyard at the tiny hamlet of Velka Bukovina.

The village is too small to appear even on many large scale maps. The Jewish population disappeared in the early 20th century as Jews moved out to bigger cities.

When I first visited, six years ago, while doing the update for my book National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel, I stayed at a charming pension that was sort of near by. The son of the family who ran it helped me find the cemetery -- it is set alone in the middle of farm fields. There did not seem to be any way actually to reach the cemetery other than tramping across the field, so that is what I did. It was the height of summer, and I waded through maybe half a mile of waist-high weeds, grass, and, I guess, hay. (Thankful that I was wearing my cowboy boots.)

This time, the going was much easier. First, I could see the cemetery int he distance from the main road. And I easily found the one-lane paved road that led up near by it. I parked at the side, and found a sort of vehicle track through the grass leading to the cemetery. It was an easy path to walk. Could I have totally missed it when I went there the first time? Or is it new since I was there?

Whatever. I easily reached the cemetery and found the gate latched but not locked. Inside the absolute rectagular wall, it was just as I remembered -- a secret garden of a place, rather well maintained (I saw a wheelbarrow propped in a corner of the space) with irregular rows of gravestones exhibiting vividly carved inscriptions and decorations, many with a decidedly rustic touch -- the oldest date back to the mid-18th century. In the distance, I could see the autum colors in the nearby forest.

All photos © Ruth Ellen Gruber

   

What I still consider one of the most moving aspects of this cemetery is also still there -- a park bench placed outside the gate, looking out at the fields. Does anyone ever ever ever come to use it? To sit and remember the community? To reflect on a world of changes?

All photos © Ruth Ellen Gruber

Impressive Jewish Visitors' Center in Brno

This post originally appeared on my En Route blog, for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal


By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Once again I have to hand it to the Czechs for the exemplary way that they preserve and promote Jewish heritage, heritage sites and memory.

I spent a day this past week in Brno, the Czech Republic’s second largest city and the capital of Moravia. I was there for a totally different —- non-Jewish—reason (a country music concert and a meeting related to the Czech country music and bluegrass scene) but I took the time to visit the Jewish Tourism and Information Center that was opened last year at the city’s Jewish cemetery, a sprawling and beautifully maintained expanse that includes about 9,000 grave markers, from simple matzevot to grand family tombs.

The Center operates as part of the Jewish Brno Project, a collaborative initiative of the Jewish community in Brno and the city’s Tourist Information Center.

A deceptively boring view of the Jewish Visitors Center. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

I was already a big fan of the project’s web site www.jewishbrno.eu—an informative and easy to use portal to Jewish heritage in Brno and at least 16 towns in southern Moravia where there are historic synagogues, cemeteries and old Jewish quarters – Mikulov, Boskovice, Trebic, Ivancice, et al.
The Brno Jewish Visitor’s Center opened in January 2011, and it sports the green “i” logo of general Czech tourist info centers. It occupies one of the three early 20th century buildings that form the mortuary complex.

The Cemetery is located at Nezamyslova 27, in the Zidenice district of town, an easy tram ride from the city center. Trams 8 and 10 from the main railway station stop right in front.

The Visitors Center provides a range of services, including guided tours of Brno Jewish sites, tourist packages and itineraries outside the city. There are stacks of free informational material, including well-produced brochures in various languages on local and regional Jewish heritage. The Center has free WiFi internet access, and there is an English-speaking staffer.

For the cemetery itself, it provides individual free tours as well as free audio guides. A brochure guide to the cemetery includes a map locating the graves of prominent people interred there – the brochure provides brief biographies and photos of their gravestones. And there is also a computer screen with a link to the cemetery database, so that you can search for individual tombs.

I didn’t have much time the day I visited, but I spent a very pleasant half hour strolling around the cemetery and following the map up and down the rows of tombs – most of them stately obelisks, and many (in the style of the late 19th century) bearing laminated photographs of the deceased.

Brno was a center of modernist architecture. Here's a modernist gravestone in the Jewish cemetery. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Jewish Tourism and Information Center

Nezamyslova 27
615 00 Brno, Czech Republic
Email: tic@jewishbrno.eu
Tel: +420 544 526 737

Brno Tourist Information Center

Radnicka 8
658 78 Brno, Czech Republic
Email: info@ticbrno.cz
Tel: +420 542 427 150
www.ticbrno.cz

Jewish Cemetery Rescued in Slovakia

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Bravo to the local Leustach civic association for organizing a clean up operation for the long-abandoned and overgrown 18th century Jewish cemetery in the village of Janikovce,  near Nitra in central Slovakia!

Here's a link to my  Jewish Heritage Europe report (with links to galleries of before and after pictures):

Dozens of volunteers, aged from 9 years old to over 70, took part, clearing brush, cutting down trees and removing waste from the cemetery, which for many years has been used as a dump site. They found discarded refrigerators, construction waste,  car parts, tires, construction material, plastic and asbestos tiles on the site. Many of the volunteers were pupils at a local middle school. [...]

The idea is to clear and clean up the cemetery and maintain it as a sort of park, but also to restore the memory of the Jewish community that had lived there for centuries until the Holocaust.

My JTA story on the new threats to the historic Jewish cemetery in Nis, Serbia

This post first appeared on my En Route blog on the Los Angeles Jewish Journal

 

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I spent most of last week in Serbia, on a fact-finding trip to assess the condition of Jewish heritage sites in the towns of Nis and Pirot. I will (I think) be posting on the trip itself, but meanwhile, I am posting some links to pieces I have already published elsewhere.
JTA today ran my article on the new threats to the Jewish cemetery in Nis, nearly 8 years after a well-publicized clean-up operation appeared to guarantee its preservation of this important site.

A historic Jewish cemetery that long has been threatened by the encroachment of a growing Roma, or Gypsy, settlement that occupies one-third of the site is now being threatened by the encroachment of commercial enterprises into the domain of the old Hebrew gravestones.

In the labyrinthine Roma village, or mahala, 800 to 1,500 people live in brick and concrete houses separated by narrow passageways and irregular courtyards. Laundry hangs from the windows, water drips from open taps and some roofs sport satellite TV dishes. At one end is a stable for horses, and at the fence that separates the village from the open part of the cemetery, sheep and goats peer out at the graves.

Eight years ago, a well-publicized cleanup campaign cleared the cemetery of garbage and waste that had covered the tombstones and eliminated the open sewers that had run amid the graves.

But the campaign’s success proved to be fleeting and now new warehouses, a restaurant and other illegal construction, including a cut-rate department store, intrude on another third of the cemetery, according to Jasna Ciric, the president of the Nis Jewish community, which numbers just 28 people.

I already posted a more detailed report on www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu.

Geographically off topic -- but right on target

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I came across a wonderful post on the Cemetery Traveler blog about a visit to an abandoned Jewish cemetery in Gladwyne, PA  -- only a few miles from where I grew up in suburban Philadelphia.

The description of the abandoned site -- and the evocative photographs taken by the blogger, Ed Snyder -- are so similar to those of people exploring abandoned Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe that I felt I had to repost.

Snyder writes:

Walking through this place is a MUST for any cemetery explorer – you may be appalled, afraid, amazed, or desire to use the location for your next zombie movie. You walk into the place and it starts off quaint - the tilted headstones, the  lone cradle graves. As you walk further through the weeds, you begin to see small clusters of graves, surrounded by rusty decorative fencing. Most of the fencing has fallen to the ground and is waiting for you to trip over. [...]

The history of this place is not well-documented. The fragments of supposed fact come from letters and oral recollections. "Har Ha Zetim Cemetery", aka Gladwyne Jewish Cemetery and "Mount of Olives," was supposedly established in 1860, and served the poor Jewish population of Philadelphia and Norristown until the 1920s. No doubt some of the the people interred here emigrated from Russia during the pogrom in 1881. The fact that this exodus occurred on Passover of that year oddly coincides with my writing this blog on the eve of Passover, 2012. [...]

Walking through Gladwyne's Abandoned Jewish Cemetery is not like finding a lonely outcropping of headstones in a farmer’s field somewhere – this was a COMMUNITY! A community of ancestors, now lost to the ages. But as you walk through the lanes of graves, the presence of all these people is alive in the air, they were REAL. They lived. They had rites, manners, and customs that were as real to them as ours are to us.

 Read the full post 

Snyder provides  links to further reading about abandoned Jewish cemeteries in the Philadelphia area, including this article from the Forward in 2004 about a Jewish cemetery in west Philadelphia that explicitly makes the parallel with the rediscovery of Jewish cemeteries in eastern and Central Europe, and his own blog post about the site.

Jewish Cemetery in Poland Vandalized

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Police are investigating a vandal attack on the Jewish cemetery in Wysokie Mazowieckie, Poland, which took place the night of March 18.

Unknown persons spray-painted swastikas and anti-semitic images and slogans, including a favorite slogan of neo-Nazi groups, "Here is Poland -- not Israel.".

The incident is the latest in a series of vandal attacks against Jewish heritage sites in that part of Poland.

Monika Krawczyk, the CEO of FODZ, the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland, notes that FODZ renovated the cemetery in 2006 and regularly maintains it, and the cemetery is enclosed by a fence. But this did not deter the vandals.

You can see a gallery of pictures of the damage provided by Monica on the web site www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu

Serbia -- Concern at condition of historic Nis Jewish cemetery

Vandalized tomb in Nis Cemetery, Dec. 22, 2011. Photo courtesy of Jasna Ciric

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

More than seven years after a well-publicized clean-up campaign, the historic Jewish cemetery in Nis, Serbia appears to be once again under threat.


The Federation of Jewish Communities of Serbia issued a statement on Wednesday protesting  “catastrophic” conditions in the cemetery and urging authorities to take action.

It said that on a recent inspection visitors found “destroyed and broken monuments, scattered bones, human waste and garbage.” It said that the cemetery was at the mercy of private entrepreneurs who have destroyed one-third of the site by building factories, restaurants and warehouses, while another third of the area is inhabited by Roma families who have built a makeshift village over the graves.

Long abandoned and partially built over and destroyed, the cemetery, which dates back to the 17th century and in 2007 was listed as a national cultural monument, was cleaned up in 2004 in an effort that involved the JDC, Serbian soldiers, and the local Roma community. 

Pictures taken Dec. 22 showed much of the area cleared of undergrowth and the grave markers visible. But Jasna Ciric, the president of the Jewish community in Nis, told me that the situation today was "a horror" and that in some ways was worse than it was in 2004.  "Grave monuments have been smashed with hammers," she said.

She said that on a previous inspection of the cemetery in September, things had been fine and it had been cleaned up.

Now, she said, a telephone line,  sewage drains and water pipes have been introduced in the midst of the cemetery.


"All the established safeguards of the Jewish cemetery in Nis, which under the Law on Cultural Property, have remained only on paper and without respect for the Jewish cemetery or the Jews who are buried there," she said. "Our cemetery is systematically destroyed, all of our long-time efforts and the money invested toward saving  this cemetery are in vain, the city authorities do not understand this issue."

The Federation appealed to the Mayor of Nis, the Ministry of Culture, the Nis Institute for Monuments Protection and other authorities to “once and for all put an end to this vandalism.”

Pictures from Dec. 22, 2011  showing homes and other structures encroaching on the Nis Jewish cemetery. Photos courtesy Jasna Ciric

Kosovo -- Jewish cemetery vandalized

Photo from http://www.kurir-info.rs

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Vandals have descerated the recently restored  Jewish cemetery in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, by scrawling anti-Semtic slogans and swastikas on the tombs. Officials condemned the desecration, and police are investigating.

The Associated Press reports:

In June, a group of students from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and their peers from the American University in Kosovo restored the neglected cemetery by clearing debris from around the graves and cutting overgrown grass.

Rabbi Edward S. Boraz of the college's Roth Center for Jewish Life held a dedication ceremony at the memorial site, with students taking turns to read out the names of Jewish families from the region who perished during World War II.

On Thursday the hate graffiti "Jud Raus" — a misspelling of the German "Juden Raus," which means "Jews out" — could still be seen at the foot of a memorial.

President Atifete Jahjaga and Prime Minister Hashim Thaci condemned the act.

"The damaging of cemeteries presents an act in complete contradiction with the traditions and values of the people of Kosovo, based on tolerance and full respect for all the dead and all the monuments," Jahjaga said in a statement.

Thaci described the desecration as "a cowardly act."

Read full article HERE

England -- Clean-up of Jewish Cemetery in Liverpool

Photo: http://www.deaneroadcemetery.com/photos.htm

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I thought I'd add a report from Liverpool, England about the start of a huge clean-up operation at the historic but derelict Deane Road Jewish cemetery, which was founded in 1837 and operated until 1929.

Prominent Liverpool Jews such as David Lewis, the founder of the big department store Lewis’s, are buried here, but the site has long been overgrown and neglected, resembling many cemeteries in Eastern Europe. Fitful clean-up has been under way since 2002, but in December 2010, the Heritage Lottery Fund agreed to award £494,000 to the cemetery to achieve full restoration of the site, with completion expected in Spring 2012. There is a web site devoted to the cemetery and the clean-up project, which will be posting before-during-and-after photographs of the progress and has maps, biographies and many other resources.

In the 19th century, a community of Jewish businessmen belonging to the Liverpool Old Hebrew Congregation changed the face of Liverpool's economy. Amongst these men and women were watchmakers, silversmiths, bankers, entrepreneurs, clerics, artists, politicians, medics and musicians. Their combined resourcefulness, wealth, activities and status helped Liverpool develop into one of the most thriving cities of the Victorian age.

For years, their graves stood desolate, obscured by trees, choked by poisonous plants, vandalised with graffiti and surrounded by refuse. Deane Road Cemetery, their final resting place, was derelict for a century. Following several failed restoration attempts, it seemed that conditions would never be able to be improved long-term. However, since 2002, an ongoing restoration project has gradually improved the physical state of the cemetery and applied for funding for a full restoration.

World Monuments Fund 2012 Watch List -- two Jewish interest sites

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Two sites of Jewish interest are included in the 2012 Watch List issued by the World Monuments Fund. Initiated in 1996, the Watch List is published every two years to call international attention to cultural heritage around the globe that is at risk from the forces of nature and the impact of social, political, and economic change.

The 2012 list includes the Portuguese (Sephardic) Jewish cemetery in Ouderkerk, in The Netherlands, famous for is distinctive carved tombstones.

Portuguese Jews settled in Amsterdam after fleeing persecution in Spain in the sixteenth century. Although northern Europe was tolerant during this violent period, the Portuguese Jews were refused a Jewish cemetery in the city. The community instead purchased land 31 miles from Amsterdam in 1614 at the confluence of the Bullewijk and Amstel rivers. Beth Haim covers 10 acres and has over 27,500 graves from over four centuries. The Portuguese Jewish community thrived in Amsterdam until the early twentieth century, and Beth Haim, which means “house of life,” is replete with refined carvings and inscriptions devoted to the dead.

The location of the cemetery at the confluence of two rivers has led to significant water issues, compounded by a lack of regular maintenance. The local community today is committed to the preservation of the cemetery, but resources are limited. Open for public tours and in close proximity to Amsterdam, the local stewards of the site strive to raise public awareness and preserve the site for future generations.

The other site is in Macedonia -- the ruins of the ancient city of Stobi, which include traces of two synagogues, one on top of the other: one dates from the 2nd or 3rd century, the other from the 4th century. Among the finds is a well-preserved mosaic floor with Jewish symbolism.

Stobi lies at the confluence of the Crna and Vardar Rivers, and was an important urban, military, administrative, trade, and religious center of the Roman and early Byzantine empires. Thought to have been first inhabited in the sixth century B.C., significant urban development and demographic expansion occurred from the first to third centuries A.D. and Stobi continued to develop and expand until it was abandoned around the turn of the seventh century. The archaeological remains within the city walls occupy 27 hectares on three terraces that slope towards the Crna; suburbs and cemeteries are located outside the city walls. The site contains 26 exposed buildings, including a theater, synagogue, palaces, houses, basilicas, and baths, and has been excavated for nearly a century. Due to poor site drainage, Stobi is constantly threatened by flooding and rising subterranean water, and lacks an integrated plan for research, conservation, interpretation, and community engagement.

Stobi is one of the most significant and well-known archaeological sites in the Republic of Macedonia and provides insight into the historical events, material culture, and urban planning of the Hellenistic, Roman, and early Christian settlements in the area. A management plan is needed to guide continued research, protection, and tourism development.

Painted gravestone decoration

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

During my recent trip visiting Jewish heritage sites in Slovakia, I came across some artwork that demonstrated the way Jewish gravestones were often painted in various colors to emphasize the carved ornamentation. (I have posted on this in the past, and have also posted pictures showing gravestones in Romania, Poland and Ukraine where you can still see traces of such polychrome decoration.)

The watercolor pictured above is a view of the  Jewish cemetery in Ungvar (today Uzhorod, Ukraine) painted in 1930, apparently by Eugen Barkany, who assembled the wonderful collection of Judaica and other objects that formed the basis of the Jewish museum founded in Presov, in eastern Slovakia, in 1928. (At the time both Uzhorod and Presov were part of Czechoslovakia -- to see old postcards of Uzhorod, click HERE.) The painting clearly shows the polychrome decoration.

The Barkany collection is now displayed in the women's gallery of the marvelously ornate Orthodox synagogue in Presov, a stop of the Slovak Jewish Heritage route (scroll down for previous posts on this route).

Here are some other paintings of cemeteries and stones by Barkany, from 1930, on display:

Can't read it well -- but, Humenne? (near Presov)

Lwow/L'viv -- tomb of the "Golden Rose" (cemetery has been destroyed)

Michalovce

Poland: New cemetery signage in Lutowiska and Starachowice

Lutowiska. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I posted recently on the exemplary fashion in which Jewish heritage sites are cared for and put on local tourism and heritage itineraries in the remote village of Lutowiska in the far southeast corner of Poland.

There is even more signage point the way to the Jewish cemetery there now,  thanks to the support of the Michael Traison Fund for Poland, the Community Office of Lutowiska and the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland (FODZ) which erected a new information plaque and road sign.

Michael's fund,  the FODZ and the Town Office of Starachowice  also put up two new road signs  marking the way to the local Jewish cemetery there (where I have never been). 

Moldova -- Video of Vadul Rascov

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Simon Geissbuehler turned me on to the extremely evocative Jewish cemetery in Vadul Rascov, a rather remote village and former shtetl in Moldova.... I've never been there, but Simon loves the place and he and others who have made the trek have written about it and taken wonderful photos.

Simon sent the link to a TV video clip (in Romanian) about the place. What strikes me is not just the site itself but the relatively recent dates on the gravestones that are shown.

Poland -- visit to Dukla

Dukla's ruined synagogue, monotype by Shirley Moskowitz, 1993. (c) Estate of Shirley Moskowitz

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

One of Polish towns I visited in June was Dukla, a small town in the far south of the country at the top of the Dukla Pass just north of the border with Slovakia. Here, just off the rather run-down market square,  stand the gaping ruins of a once imposing synagogue.

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

And there are  two Jewish cemeteries at the edge of town, marked from the road with a sign indicating it is a war memorial site.

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

The walled newer cemetery, entered through a rusting gate, had a few neat rows of stones, some with fairly interesting carving -- and the whole area was nicely maintained, with freshly-cut grass/weeds.

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Dulka. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Across the dirt road, though, the eroding gravestones in the old cemetery were scarcely visible in the thick vegetation.

Dukla. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

I first visited Dukla in, I believe, 1992, when I was researching my book "Upon the Doorposts of thy House: Jewish Life in East Central Europe, Yesterday and Today." (The book is out of print, but I am planning to re-issue it as an e-book on Kindle.) Things are much today as they were then, though the market square seemed a bit more run-down and less quaint this time around.

This is what I wrote about Dukla in "Doorposts":

The Dukla Pass is the lowest and easiest north-south route through the western Carpathians, and by the 16th century it was already a well-established artery for trade, including the wine trade. the town of Dukla itself prospered as a major center for the import of Hungarian wine, though Ber of Bolechow [the 18th century wine merchant and Jewish leader from what is now Bolekhiv in Ukraine] recounted that the Jewish wine traders from there were not always quite honest. He told the story of a certain Reb Hayyim of Dukla, who made a large purchase of wine in the Hungarian town of Miskolc at the same time that Ber's brother and two other associates were there. Unfortunately, Reb Hayyim paid the Hungarian suppliers with counterfeit money -- golden ducats that turned out to be gold-plated copper -- and Ber's brother and a friend were arrested along with Hayyim, even though it was acknowledged that they had not held any of the bad coins.

The three were kept in jail for a year, until, after much nerve-wracking investigation, the origin of the bad coins was traced to a monastery, which in turn had received them from local noblemen, who made a practice of circulating debased coinage at that time. Ber's brother was released from prison and was even paid a considerable sum in compensation for wrongful arrest, Ber wrote. But the affair had taken a toll: the stress and tension had caused Ber to break out in spots.

During World War II the Dukla Pass was the scene of bitterly fought battles between combined Czechoslovak and Soviet armies and the Germans. The bloody mountain fighting in the autumn of 1944 destroyed the German defenses and left 100,000 soldiers dead. The towns of Dukla, to the north of the pass, and Svidnik in Slovakia to the south, were almost totally razed. I passed numerous memorials to this fighting as I drove along the gentle curves through the wooded hills. Monuments had been erected to the fallen, and ruined tanks, artillery pieces, and airplanes had been left in place where they had been at the close of he conflict, rusting memorials to the battle.

Dukla itself was a small town clustered around a stage-set market square with a white market hall at its center. Nearby, I found the synagogue. It had been built around the middle of the 18th century, and the wily Reb Hayyim may will have worshipped there. Now it was a ruin. It had been destroyed during the wartime battles and had simply been left as it was, four massive stone walls and little else, looming in a small hollow. At the edge of town, a few graves still stood in the Jewish cemetery, surrounded by a brilliant carpet of wild spring flowers.

On that trip, I brought my mother, the artist Shirley Moskowitz, with me -- and she produced a cycle of montoype prints of some of the Jewish heritage sites we visited -- including the one of Dukla synagogue at the top of this post. The cycle of prints was exhibited in several places in Poland in the early 2000s, and now many of them are posted on the web site that we established for her and her artwork after her death in 2007.

Poland -- the Chassidic Route: Baligrod

My car is parked at the entrance to the cemetery, pointing back toward the village. It was a bit tricky turning around. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The  village of Baligrod, about 20 km south of Lesko, is another stop on the Chassidic Route itinerary sponsored by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland (FODZ).

Jews lived here from the early 17th century and for much of the period between the 18th century and World War II they made up a majority of the residents. The synagogue and other buildings were destroyed in WWII.

The Jewish cemetery survives on a hill overlooking the town — a lovely spot with a beautiful view -- and the narrow, bumpy dirt road is clearly marked by signposts from the village. I drove up (as I didn't know how far it would be) but it would make more sense to park below and walk.

Photo: Ruth Ellen Gruber

There are supposed to be about 200 stones here;  the oldest legible date from  1718 and 1732. The Nazis used hundreds of gravestones  to pave the market square -- they are believed still to be there, covered by asphalt.


The cemetery was restored in 2008, and the stones are in good condition — and there is even an incongruous red trash can for visitors to deposite rubbish (it was filled with  used plastic water bottles) –  but when I visited the grass and weeds were chest-high , in sore need of cutting. The grass totally obscured some of the stones -- I tried to see as many as I could, but I know I didn't see them all.

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Still, I found many beautifully carved stones, with a variety of candlestick shapes on women's stones, ranging from crude but delicate incised images to more elaborate styles, some featuring candlesticks flanked by birds. See more candlesticks stones at my candlesticksonstone.wordpress.com site.

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Someone had clearly visited a short while before I did, though, as there were narrow paths tromped through the grass, and someone had piled stones and pebbles on many of the gravestones.

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Poland -- the Chassidic Route: Lesko

Former Synagogue in Lesko. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The last time I had been in Lesko was in 2006, when I was updating my book Jewish Heritage Travel -- but also attending the annual biker and country music festival held there, "Moto Country Piknik." It was a wild night full of black leather-clad beer-drinkers, heavy metal chrome, and Polish country acts, most of whose names I didn't get.

Lesko Moto Country festival, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Five years later, on the Jewish heritage front, I found little changed...

The imposing synagogue, just off the main market square, dates from the mid 17th century. It is the only one of five prayer houses to survive World War II. It was devastated during the war and rebuilt in the 1960s -- the reconstruction added baroque gables (which a booklet on sale at the synagogue said had been removed in the 19th century). That on the front facade frames the depiction of the Ten Commandments. The reconstruction also extended the height of the tower so that it now extends above the roof level.

All in all, I find it a very beautiful and impressive building -- and, importantly, there has long been separate signpost outside identifying it as a former synagogue and describing the history: before World War II, nearly two-thirds of the town population was Jewish. In the entry hall there are several plaques listing the names of hundreds of Lesko Jews killed at the Belzec death camp in 1942.

Memorial to Lesko Jews at Belzec. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

The synagogue is now used as a gallery displaing and selling local arts and crafts. Five years ago I bought there a wonderful naive carving of the late Pope John Paul II, wearing red shoes and with his head surrounded by angels.

Inside the synagogue gallery. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Each time I've visited the gallery, I've found a refreshing lack of kitschy carved Jewish figures and paintings on sale -- such as those so prevalent in Krakow and Warsaw...   but one of the local artists still did utilize the "Jew and money" stereotype in a rather outrageous manner! That's real money clutched in their hands!

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

 The Jewish cemetery in Lesko, founded in the 16th century, is one of the oldest and most historically important in Poland. It is vast, and rises up a steep hill, just down the road from the synagogue. The oldest stones are at the bottom, by the entrance -- massive slabs with vividly carved epitaphs but no other decoration. Here is where the tour groups stop --  a Polish tour group was visiting this time when I entered.

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Few people, however, venture and farther up the hill, except for school kids using one of the paths as a short cut.

 The higher you go  the more, and more recent, and more vividly carved stones there are. But also -- at least in early summer -- the more overgrown and untended do you find them..... it is a real wasteland; I have to say, I felt both glad to see people (like the tour group) visiting, but rather lonely and depressed that so much of the cemetery was a jungle. And this comes from someone who has seen endless overgrown Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe! I think the contrast of the "known" and "unknown" -- the "remembered" and the "forgotten" -- just got to me.

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

I can't put it any better than a post I have linked to before -- a description of the Lesko cemetery on the riowang.blogspot.com  site.

Hungary to Poland trip -- Lutowiska!

View of Lutowiska from Jewish cemetery. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

One of my aims in the southeastern corner of Poland was to explore  some  Jewish heritage sites for the first time -- as well as revisit some that I had been to previously to update my information on their status and condition.

One of the first-time places was the hamlet of Lutowiska -- way down in the triangular southeastern tip of the country that pokes between Ukraine and Slovakia, very close to the Ukrainian border.  Pretty far, far away.....   When borders were different, though, tt was once a major trading center,  with a large Jewish population. According to a Yizkor book entry on Lutowiska, Jews  were the majority population from the late 19th century.

Here's information from the town web site:

The name Lutowiska comes from the Russian word „letowyshche” designating a place where cattle and sheep were grazed in summer. The village was set up in the 16th century according  o the Wallachian law in estates that then belonged to the Stadnicki family. The village was first referred to in 1580. The village was located on the intersection of busy trade routes from Sanok to the Tucholska Pass and further to Transylvania and from Przemyśl through the Beskid Mountains or Użock Pass to Użhorod. There was also a local route to the East through Turka to Drohobycz. Such a place encouraged the location of a town. Thanks to the efforts of Ludwik Urbański Lutowiska was granted a charter at the beginningof the 18th century. In 1742 King August III granted the town a privilege to hold ten big fairs a year (by comparison  Sanok and Lesko only held two big fairs a year). In the 19th century the big fairs in Lutowiska were famous throughout Europe. People chiefly traded in oxen that were grazed on high-elevation meadows (poloninas). They were grey, long-horned cattle called Hungarian, willingly bought even by merchants from Western Europe. During thebig fair the whole Lutowiska was packed with cattle, a few thousand animals were here at a time. Lutowiska’s centra consisted then of two adjoining market places surrounded by wooden houses, which mainly belonged to Jews, a majority of the town’s population. Lutowiska lost the status of town in 1919, though it remained the region’s significant trade and administrative centre until the Second World War. The census of 1921 discovered 261 houses inhabited by 2125 people. In 1939 the settlement already had about 3500 inhabitants. In June 1942 Gestapo officers from Ustrzyki Dolne shot ca. 650 local Jews. They also burnt the synagogue and Jewish houses, practically all the wooden buildings in Lutowiska. Between 1945 and 1951 Lutowiska was within the Soviet borders, the name was changed to Shevchenko. At the end of 1951 a mere 28 families lived there. Resettlers from the Sokal and Hrubieszów regions mainly moved to the deserted houses. The village only reverted to its original name after a few years. In 1951 Lutowiska became home to communal authorities.

I had been told that there was a Jewish cemetery here, but that it was outside the village; I would have to ask, I was told, but people would know.

In fact, there is a beautiful, and beautifully maintained, Jewish cemetery here, as well as the ruins of the synagogue -- and I was delighted to find that  local authorities have included both in a well organized touristic/educational route in and around the town that focuses on the three cultures that before WW2 coexisted here -- Jews,  Poles and Ukrainians. The itinerary is aimed at bringing back awareness of destroyed local history (Holocaust as well as post-war expulsions and population and border shifts) and also highlight the landscape and environment.

Sign of Three Cultures route outside entry to Jewish cemetery. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

The cemetery is on a hill behind the town's big school, immersed in lovely rolling landscape -- I found it by asking at the local tourism office, where an English-speaking young man gave me explicit directions as well as a brochure and map for the Three Cultures route. I walked there, following three back-packing girls who also headed that way to visit the site.

The cemetery is enclosed by a rustic fence, and the weeds and grass are cut. There are some dozens of gravestones, some with fairly elaborate carving; many tilted, some eroded -- I was able to document a lot of women's tombstones, for my (Candle)sticks on Stones project, showing a variety of carved versions of candlesticks.

Some of the carvings were very reminiscent of the carving style in Busk and other places across the border in what is today Ukraine.

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

The carving on this stone reminds me of that across today's border in Ukraine. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

 

Other sites on the Three Cultures itinerary include the Greek-Catholic cemetery, with a replica of the wooden church that no longer stands here:

Replica of the Greek-Catholic church Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Hungary to Poland trip Part I -- a Jewish cemetery uncovered....

Revealed on the road side. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

 

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I'm beginning to post material from my recent road trip to Hungary and Poland; it was somehow difficult to get things online when traveling....

My itinerary took me from Budapest to Sanok and other towns in the far southeast corner of Poland, and then to Krakow. Most of the route through Hungary is four-lane motorway, but from Miskolc north to the border with Slovakia it's still a two-lane highway.

The first time I recall driving this way was in 1992, when I was researching my book "Upon the Doorposts of Thy House: Jewish Life in East-Central Europe, Yesterday and Today." One of the chapters of that book is a long essay, "Wine Merchants and Wonder Rabbis" about the links that connected northern Hungary and southern Poland -- wine going north, Hassidism going south.

At that time, the only person I encountered who remembered the existence of the Jewish cemetery of Méra, a village in northern Hungary in the road to the Slovak border, was a malodorous old drunk, who got in the car and guided me there. I found the broken frame of a gate and a few eroded tombstones imbedded in a thick wall of brush just off the side of the main road.

The last time I had driven that way, a few years ago, I hadn't been able even to make out where the cemetery was, it was so overgrown. There seemed to be nothing.  I feared it was totally lost -- and with it,  the memory of the Jews who had lived there.

So this time, I was quite surprised to find that the cemetery had been cleared of brush, bushes, under- and overgrowth, with the stones fully exposed. In fact, I was astonished! Even the grass/weeds had been freshly cut! (I'm not sure, though, who has carried out the work or when it was done.)

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

What was revealed, however, was the story of death and vandalism as well as remembered life... some of the stones had been broken or smashed...., but the fragments had been gathered and stood together.

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

But...regardless -- there they were! Clean, cleared, exposed, not submerged any more out of sight out of mind;  revealed for all to see!

Lithuania -- Jewish cemetery site (with map)

Old Jewish Cemetery, Valbanikas, Lithuania. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I've just come across this web site about Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania -- which includes a map of all known cemetery locations, photographs from some cemeteries, and reports on efforts to clean some of them up and restore damaged gravestones. The epitaphs on a number of stones are also translated.

I visited a number of Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania in 2006, when I was updating Jewish Heritage Travel -- and most were in rather poor, neglected condition. The tombstones themselves were much less ornately carved than in other countries, such as Poland, Romania, and Ukraine.

I have already posted on this blog about my experience visiting the ruined Jewish cemetery in Kalvarija, where my great-grandfather came from -- and about efforts to repair the cemetery and read the gravestones there.

Jewish cemetery in Kalvarija, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

One of the most interesting (and well maintained) Jewish cemeteries I saw in Lithuania was the old Jewish cemetery in Valbanikas, a village that also has two disused masonry synagogue buildings. Some of the gravestones exhibited carving, and the cemetery was also one of the few that I found actually signposted from the road.

Carved gravestone in Valbanikas. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Signpost to Old Jewish Cemetery. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber